Husband and I joke (somewhat nervously, I must admit) about the day our Tivo* gets hold of our cellphone numbers and starts checking up on us while we’re out.

Our paranoia edged up a notch when we learned that the you can opt to let your xbox 360 blog about you, even when you aren’t around.

The Washington Post’s Mike Musgrove has a humorous piece about his own blogging xbox in today’s Business section:

And, while we’re at it, why knock my general lack of love for the current batch of Xbox 360 games when the real reason I haven’t spent time on the Xbox system this summer is the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero?

I put on a rockin’ toy-guitar performance last week, for the benefit of my girlfriend’s two dogs, who were as surprised as I was when I made it through Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon” on the game’s “expert” level. But did my Xbox, parked nearby on the floor, deign to notice or even give this feat a passing mention on its blog? Nooooooo.

[read the whole article]

Apropos of nothing, I’d just like to point out that dogs are much more participatory in this respect than cats. Cats are another story. Cats would not have given him props for such an effort. Cats would mock this effort by yawning vigorously and then marching past him and making a big display of curling up and going to sleep. On the other hand, you never have to take a cat out for a walk in the pouring rain.

As you may have surmised, we’re still leading the PetFree Lifestyle. Eventually more cats and a dog or two (and a goat! oh, please can we have a goat?) will find their way into our lives.

Besides, who needs a pet when you have Tivo? I’d be worried that the Tivo would actively try to harm the pets while we were out. I suspect the Tivo has a propensity towards jealous fits of rage. To be fair, we used to have a cat who got jealous of the TV and would periodically pee on it. (insert joke about the dearth of quality of programming *here*).

*Just remember, Tivo will change your life!